The Rants & Rambles of A Grumpy Old Dude

Tag Archives: kayaks

Once upon a time, in beautiful downtown Ontario, there lived a man and his wife. He worked hard at his job, and became very successful. He became so successful in fact, that his boss asked him if he would like to open up and manage his own branch office. Overjoyed, the man quickly said, “Sure.”

Then the boss told him that the branch was to be in Moose Factory. “Moose Factory,” he said, “that’s almost above the Arctic Circle!” But he went, and he was very successful in his new location, and he stayed. He and his wife had a family, and they grew used to the place, and its weather.

Winters were cold and snowy, but they went skiing and snowshoeing, and snowmobiling and ice fishing. They damn near froze to death, but they did them. They also found what the place had in the summer….18 to 22 hours of sun every day. The weather was consistently clear, and the temperatures often went into the eighties F. and sometimes even the nineties.

Summer lasted from June through to September, and they did live right on the ocean shore. It was the Arctic Ocean – well…Hudson’s Bay….but it was the ocean. Granted, it didn’t warm up enough to swim in until late August, but you could go boating on it, and almost everyone did. Anything from Eskimo kayaks to canoes, to row boats, to motor boats, and sailboats of all sizes….

Within a few years, the man and his wife had accumulated a family of kids, and a group of boats to go with them. One of the problems encountered by ocean boaters, but worse in this location, was that of marine finishes. The salt air, combined with being stored over the winter in a cold climate, meant that all the boats had to be scraped and painted every year, before they could be put in the water.

It got to be a real assembly-line performance, with the older kids scraping and sanding, and lifting boats on and off the painting stands, Mom stirring the paint to be sure it was the right color, and well mixed, and Dad brushing it on, while the youngest of the children, a little boy, ran up and down the beach throwing stones at the Arctic seabirds.

It was while he had stopped to rest for a moment, and was gazing at the scene, the father realized that his wife was leaving no tone unstirred, he was leaving no stern untoned, and his young son was leaving no tern unstoned.